


promise i won't budge

by transvav



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Fake AH Crew, M/M, and the three of them are all very gay, based off of a prompt, gavin is a nasty hacker gremlin boy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-25
Updated: 2017-07-25
Packaged: 2018-12-06 17:09:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11605098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transvav/pseuds/transvav
Summary: (but i'm weak [and what's wrong with that?])Jeremy's just looking for a little bit of cash to tide over his debt collectors. Ryan's just looking for a roommate to help him out with the rent.Phantom's just looking to have a little fun with his favorite employees.





	promise i won't budge

**Author's Note:**

> based off the prompt: All my intel said you’re not meant to be back until next week and I’m sitting here using your flat as a sniper nest to kill a bad guy. This is awkward.  
> as per usual, i went Overboard

Jeremy’s finger pulled trigger back as the door to the apartment burst open.

The target’s head was suddenly on the ground, blood pouring onto the cement, and a few screams echoed up from the street, but Jeremy was turned towards the front door, eyes wide.

There was a man standing there in a black and blue leather jacket, dark stains in blossoms on his brown shirt and jeans. He had a bag slung over his shoulder that he dumped to the ground which made Jeremy flinch back, just a little. His eyes narrowed, his fists slowly clenching at his sides.

“What... the fuck,” he said slowly, and Jeremy swallowed, “are you doing in my apartment?”

 

It started like this.

Jeremy was a fighter. Not a gunman, not an assassin- he was a _fighter_. He took bets in an underground fighting club and beat up other desperate idiots that decided to jump in the ring with him. But sometimes, a debt to someone was too much and he couldn’t afford to pay someone back on just his winnings.

And he knew his way around a gun if he needed it.

So he took... odd jobs. A bomb could be made from instructions on WikiHow A gun could be bought from four different stores in Los Santos. Poison could be found in fucking _Walmart_.

And jobs made money that he had to get.

This time it was a weapons dealer from down south that he owed money for a bundle of C4 he’d stolen, mixed with the mechanic that painted his car his signature orange and purple. He didn’t have enough from the fights. He didn’t have _enough_. Desperate, he’d called a contact of his.

A contact of _anyone_ in Los Santos, that was desperate enough.

The contact’s name was Phantom and if you were in need of some quick cash, all you had to do was get in touch with him. It seemed easy enough, but his site was nothing but proxy server on proxy server, firewalls and reroutes and passcodes upon passcodes, the hints for those hidden in graffiti and bars around the city. It was a hell to go through even once, but if you did, it was proof enough that you were, in some warped and fucked up way, worthy to take these jobs.

They were always, _always_ assassinations. Without fail. It’s why Phantom’s site was the site of the desperate and damned. You had to be just desperate enough to move up- from whatever petty thievery you’d done, from whatever hacking jobs you thought you were best at, from whatever fight club you’d come from- you had to be prepared to actually kill.

Los Santos was not a city for the faint of heart.

Jeremy went through two proxy servers before a chat room popped up on his screen. He swallowed.

 

Phantom: :)

Phantom: :)

Phantom: :) :) :) :)

Phantom: you’re back, lil j!

Guest: I guess I am huh

Phantom: are you in a mess again?

Phantom: you should really be more careful about who you make deals with

Guest: Are you just going to lecture me or are you gonna give me a job

Phantom: sure, sure! i’ll give you a bit of a discount for being one of my favorites ;)

Guest: What

Phantom: there’s some shit politician that needs to be gone

Phantom: preferably sniped

Guest: Just that?

Phantom: just that!

Phantom: i can give you a few other details if you’re up for the job, including pay

Phantom: but i can guarantee that if you take this you’ll be out of your debt

Phantom: with quite a bit left over for spending

Guest: Holy shit, seriously

Phantom: i told you!

Phantom: you’re one of my favorites

Guest: Shit, alright

Guest: Just tell me who, when and where

Phantom: the who would be a man by the name of the Corpirate

Phantom: ridiculous i know but that’s how it goes

Phantom: i’ll need it done next thursday

Phantom: and there’s an apartment across the street from where i need you to be

Phantom: i know for a fact it’ll be empty

Guest: Done and done, I guess

Guest: Easy enough

Phantom: the money’ll be in your account when it’s done ;)

Phantom: see you soon, lil j ;D

Guest: you use too many faces

 

The apartment in question was two blocks away from his usual fighting ring. It was also considerably nicer than the one he was currently living in. The building was across the street from a nightclub that Phantom had told him the Corpirate frequented- the apartment itself on the fifth floor, the key under a welcome mat two doors down.

It was nice enough inside. There was a window facing outwards towards the street that he knew the target would appear on, and a chair right in front of it that seemed perfectly placed for this type of job. Another look around found him a few fake passports and ID cards, and there was a loose tile in the floor of the kitchen that revealed a stash of cash wads, a few thousand at least.

Another one of Phantom’s clients, then. That’s how he knew he’d be gone for the day.

Jeremy hefted the rifle case off the couch, a little note with barely legible writing sitting on top of it with Phantom’s signature at the bottom. He moved towards the chair and started his set up, sliding his shades off and setting them to the side before pulling the rifle out of it’s case.

And now he had to wait.

It was about 2 a.m. when patrons started making their way out of the doors- Jeremy lined up his sight at what head level was for most of them and watched carefully- there he was-

And the door opened.

* * *

 

Ryan was having a long day.

His _employer_ had been making shifty little comments all day through an app Ryan had never even installed on his phone in the first place, sending quips and remarks that made him think Phantom was planning something.

“You’d better not,” he muttered to himself, shutting his phone off as he prepared himself for the hit. He could almost imagine Phantom laughing in his ear. He’d had the incredulous luck of actually knowing what that sounded like.

He’d never _seen_ Phantom, of course, but the man had made himself known on one of Ryan’s hits before, cleverly inserting himself into situation by hacking the radio earpiece Ryan was carrying on him in the stakeout beforehand.

“How do you feel about a roommate?” Phantom had asked, distinctly British and not as annoying during the third hour mark.

“I could use one,” he answered, and then hushed whatever remark was coming up as the target finally arrived home. Phantom went obediently silent, but made a quiet hum of thought. Ryan didn’t want to know.

Now, a few months later, Phantom was being oddly cryptic about Ryan returning home. He’d said there was a surprise in Ryan’s apartment, and Ryan did _not_ want to know what that meant. But he needed to go back. It was summer and it was hot and Ryan really, _really_ wanted to be in his air conditioned bedroom.

So an hour or two after midnight he was heading up the stairs to his apartment, carrying his duffel with his payment (cash only, he didn’t want Phantom snooping in his bank account, although he was sure the damned hacker already did). When he got up, though, the door was slightly ajar.

Which didn’t bode well.

He debated opening it slowly and sneaking up on the attacker, but decided it’d be more fun to surprise them. He paused, and exhaled-

And slammed the door open, listening to it hit satisfactorily against the wall, along with a gunshot as loud as thunder.

The man at his window jumped and was now looking at him with wide, fearful eyes.

He let his duffle bag slide of his shoulder and watched as the stranger jumped slightly. A steady silence followed before he took a deep breath.

“What... the fuck. Are you doing in my apartment?”

The kid (because that was, really, what this guy was- just a fucking kid) fumbled with the rifle and dropped it to his side and started stuttering excuses, hands shaking and eyes wide. “I was just- I just needed to do this job and the guy who gave it to me said this place would be empty, fuck, shit, I am so sorry, he just told me- fucking _christ_ , Phantom.”

The last part was softly muttered to himself, obviously not trying to be heard, but Ryan paused, a tilt of his head and a growing pain in the back of his mind as things started to piece themselves together.

He could hear the little chuckles in his head now.

“Son of a bitch,” Ryan huffed, and the kid looked up at him confused. “God fucking dammit, Phantom, you motherfucker!”

“What.”

“What’s your name?”

“...Jeremy?”

“Alright, Jeremy,” he said, holding out a hand. “I’m sorry we got off on the wrong foot, our employer is an asshole.”

His phone vibrated in his pocket. He deliberately ignored it. Jeremy looked a bit off put, confusion in his features, and Ryan could only sigh.

“Phantom’s been... unhelpfully helping me look for a roommate, and I guess he decided on. You.”

“Oh,” Jeremy said, blinking in confusion. “Uh. Okay. Flattering? I think?”

“Do you? Need someplace to live, even?”

“I mean,” Jeremy shrugged, rubbing at his arm. “It’d be great if I did have someplace, but like. Neither of us has _any idea_ who the other is. And like. That’s a little fuckin’ strange.”

“You have green hair and you’re sniping someone from my living room window, I’ve just come back from killing someone in a seedy alley behind a McDonald’s, we live in Los Santos and we take jobs from some hacker no one is even sure is actually real.”

A silence followed before Jeremy pressed his lips together and nodded slowly and shrugged. “Jeremy Dooley.”

“Ryan Haywood.”

He reached out his hand and Jeremy took it, shook it, and Ryan pulled him up.

* * *

 

The Vagabond and Rimmy Tim (“Awful name, awful, terrible name- _why is your hair purple and orange_?”) were the new pair to fear in the city.

Jeremy’s bosses in the fighting ring had respectfully stepped off and away from keeping him there. His debt collectors mysteriously disappeared too- Ryan insisted he’d had nothing to do with that, but Jeremy wasn’t absolutely sure until some extra money dropped into his account and a message was sent to him containing one, single smiley face.

“Kind of a smug prick, Phantom.”

Ryan mm’d in agreement and continued to methodically wash the blood off his knife. Jeremy stared at the figures in his account as a thought crept into his mind and a smile crept onto his face.

“Wanna get a penthouse?”

Ryan paused his cleaning to turn and grin.

 

The new couch was faux leather and smelled like a factory and was the comfiest thing Jeremy had ever sat on in his entire fucking miserable life.

He could hear Ryan’s chuckling even with his entire head buried in the corner of the armrest and the cushion. “Having fun?”

“It smells like hell and I think it might be because it’s sucking me in and I _never want to get up_.”

“We’ll have to thank Phantom.”

“Yeah,” Jeremy said, finally pushing himself up a bit. “How do we, though? He’s fucking unreachable.”

“You’d be surprised,” Ryan scoffed. “He’ll probably join us for our next hit.”

Jeremy stared at him. Ryan stared back, confused, before something clicked. “Oh! Right, you don’t... Yeah, Phantom talks to me sometimes.”

“You’ve _heard_ him?”

“Sure,” Ryan laughed. “He’s an asshole but he’s alright. It’s good to have him watching over you in the field, I guess. Some sort of fucked up guardian angel.”

“He order this couch?”

“He furnished the whole place, I think.”

Jeremy slumped forwards again. “If I meet him, I’m gonna marry him.”

“What about me?” Ryan joked, and Jeremy waved an arm at him passively.

“If you can step up to the plate beforehand, then it’s gonna be a big gay threeway.”

Ryan choked on his laughter, and Jeremy smiled into the couch, and then realized he wasn’t really opposed to the thought of marrying Ryan.

 

They kissed two weeks later on the balcony, Ryan laughing as he had to stoop low to kiss him.

Jeremy tasted smoke from a cigarette and the mint of a poor attempt to cover it up and Jeremy grasped his leather jacket so tight it felt like he was pressing his nails through the fabric into his own palms.

They christened the bed to hell and back, and Jeremy laughed about how if it wasn’t for Phantom, _none of this would be real_.

Ryan hummed in agreement, tracing patterns into the pillowcase.

* * *

 

Ryan’s back hit the ground and he skid slightly along the concrete.

Off to his right a pin bounced and Jeremy made a grunt as he lobbed the grenade forward before ducking down. The explosion left their ears ringing and smoke in their noses, but Jeremy gave him a grin, his hair atrociously bright, and Ryan nodded once, pulling his extra pistol out. The gunfire behind them had ceased after the explosion, and now there were just groans and hitched sobs from the men that were begging to be put down with shrapnel in their stomachs.

In the back of the building was a locked door that Jeremy kicked down. Inside was a thin man in a desk chair, backlit by two bright computer monitors, cuffs on his ankles chaining him to the floor. His hair was in a messy topknot and there was a scar across the bridge of his nose. His lip was freshly split but he smiled wide at the sight of the both of them.

“There’s my favorites,” he said in delight, and Jeremy sighed in blatant relief while Ryan moved forward.

“Had us worried there, Phantom.”

 

Now, it went like this.

Jeremy and Ryan were a well known team, by that point, a scar on Los Santos, a permanent fixture in the criminal upperground. If there was an assassination to be done, they were the ones to do it- messily, and chaotically, but they would get it done. There were some jobs that weren’t for them, some jobs that their old employer gave out to fresh blood that were easier and simpler than most. But the Battle Buddies made enough to start paying Phantom back for everything he’d done for them, and he laughed across a chat room as they invited him to their missions.

“Good lord, Lil J, what on _earth_ are you wearing?” was the first thing out of Phantom’s mouth that Jeremy ever heard. It had Ryan snickering behind his shitty bandana mask and Jeremy yelping in both indignation and surprise. Phantom had no boundaries and very little filter. “And your hair! I didn’t give you all that money for _that_ suit and _that_ hair in _those_ colors!”

“Some of this,” Jeremy said, mildly offended as his boyfriend continued laughing, “was earned on my own! Not by jobs from you!”

“You wouldn’t be earning money on your own if it wasn’t for me!” Phantom cried, and Ryan laughed harder, even if it was true for him too.

That was Jeremy’s first few seconds of hearing Phantom’s voice, and although it was mostly mockery and disgust-

Oh, christ, why was Jeremy such a gay fucking mess?

He had one boyfriend! He was being greedy! He did not need a foreign hacker boyfriend as well as a hot dad murdering boyfriend!

Yes he did, an unhelpful part of him told him, late at night after the third mission with Phantom in his left ear. Yes he fucking did.

He crushed that part of himself deep, deep inside of his heart and told it to shut the fuck up.

Missions continued. Jeremy and Ryan, as a unit, continued. Phantom continued (to be a nuisance and endearing. Insufferably loveable. Sometimes Jeremy wanted to punch him. Sometimes he wanted to kiss him. Jeremy’s life was hell). Every day they were as close to the top as they could be, as a duo, and every day they conversed asking Phantom to join them. Permanently. And to make a crew.

They wanted to approach the subject one night after a successful triple hit.

Jeremy was laughing about something Phantom had joked, Ryan shedding his blood soaked jacket and dumping it in the stolen car’s backseat as they raced down the streets towards their penthouse. A comfortable silence started to settle over the three of them, Jeremy and Ryan grinning at each other, hearing Phantom’s squeak of laughter over the coms. And then Ryan looked at Jeremy as his smile faded into something softer, a moment of understanding passing between them.

“Phantom,” Ryan started when the giggles died down. “We, uh, have a proposition for you.”

“Oh, really?” the hacker hummed, interest and humor in his voice. “I’m listen- wait, hold on, loves, gimme a moment.”

There was a rustle in their ears as Phantom presumably took his headset off to investigate something just out of the room. The two of them waited patiently in silence, driving quietly on the city roads, until a loud bang startled the two of them into ducking out of harm’s way. It took them a second to realize it had been on the other end of the line.

“Phantom?” Jeremy asked. Worry started growing in his chest when the hacker didn’t answer immediately, and instead another loud gunshot echoed on the coms and a bit of a fight could be heard. “ _Phantom!_ ”

The headset thumped against something loudly before Phantom’s labored breathing came over the line. “We’re gonna- _ah_ \- have to catch this up in a- at a later date, loves, if that’s alrigh- _would you kindly eff off-_ ”

There was a grunt and a crash, and then the line went dead.

 

Now they were here, after tracking down the people who’d taken him, and he was _here_ , in their house, that he’d bought for them.

Things were underwhelming.

Phantom looked like a mess- his sweatpants were baggy and tattered at the ends, riding low on his hips, and the t-shirt he was wearing looked like it was three sizes too big with the sleeves rolled up and some type of stains on the front in varying shades. They watched awkwardly as he untangled his hair bun and started brushing through the thick knots in his hair nervously.

“Um, thank you,” he finally said, smiling up at the two of them. “For. You know. Saving me.”

“Of course,” Ryan said at the same time Jeremy said, “No problem.”

Phantom laughed softly and nodded. “You really didn’t have to, though, so I mean it. Thank you.”

“What do you mean, we didn’t have to?” Jeremy asked, slightly affronted. “Why _wouldn’t_ we?”

“Well, you just...” he trailed off with a shrug, suddenly unsure. The three of them stood around in silence before Phantom got back up and took his hairbrush, shuffling slightly.

“I’ll... be in the extra room, if that’s alright?”

“Yeah! Yeah, of course, go right ahead,” Ryan nodded, gesturing down the hall. Gavin smiled slightly and made his way towards the room. Everything was quiet as he closed the door behind him.

“So he’s...” Jeremy couldn’t find the right word.

“Cute,” was what Ryan quietly supplied. Jeremy turned to him, blinking in surprise and confusion. “What? Am I _wrong_?”

“I mean, no, you aren’t, I just. Hm.”

“Jeremy, we can be adults about this.”

“Okay?”

“Phantom is cute and I want to date him.”

“I... also want to date him.”

“Great, now that that’s out of the way, let’s fucking go to bed and talk about this _later_.”

 

They didn’t talk about it later.

They woke up and Phantom was in the kitchen, making himself tea, still in his old clothing with a smile on his face as he listened to music. They’d grabbed some of his stuff on the way back, a couple of laptops, a tablet, his iPhone and extra headsets, and a couple boxes of tea and a mug. He smiled at them and nodded, raising his cup before slipping around them and going back to the room he’d set up in.

Jeremy and Ryan looked at each other, and shrugged, and went on.

And it kept going. They didn’t see a lot of him- he seemed nervous, all of a sudden, flitting around in the shadows of the house and keeping himself out of their main focus. Even on coms when they were on missions, he seemed more subdued. Jeremy tried not to push it, but his chest ached. He noticed how Ryan’s glances kept lingering on the door as it was closed, too.

But they _didn’t fucking talk about it_.

They kissed against an alley wall and the same night Ryan mumbled something about the bed being too big for just two. They broke a police officer’s nose and car window and Jeremy, after a few drinks, lamented about how soft Phantom’s hair looked, how much he wanted to touch it. It all built- continuously built- up and up and up, like a bottle of soda too shaken, a pot of water boiling beneath the lid.

 

Finally, finally, something happened.

 

Phantom was in the kitchen, on his laptop, in nothing but a tank top and boxers, and Jeremy paused in the doorway. The hacker’s hair was in a high ponytail, now, and he played with it absentmindedly as he took a swig of an energy drink- his fourth or fifth, by the looks of the pile of cans around him, as well as his third cup of ramen noodles and second mug of caffeinated tea.

“You’re gonna fucking die of a heart attack,” he pointed out, and Phantom jumped before grinning widely at him.

“Probably. But I gotta get this done, so...”

“Does that actually help you?”

Phantom looked at the can for a while before pursing his lips and giving a one shouldered shrug. “No.’

“Too much caffeine doesn’t work after a while, Phantom.”

“Gavin.”

Jeremy blinked. Twice. “What?”

“My name,” Phantom smiled brilliantly. “It’s Gavin.”

“Oh,” Jeremy said, and smiled back. “Do you want some actual food, Gavin?”

“I’d... like that,” he grinned, his eyes lighting up. Ryan joined them while the pancakes were on the pan, humming and pressing a kiss to the side of Jeremy’s head. Gavin watched them, smiling, and said nothing.

 

From then on, though, he was back to how he’d used to be.

Loud and boisterous and full of laughter, goading and betting and joking and bright. Teasing and calling them his favorites, with a ruffle of Ryan’s hair and a look of disgust towards Jeremy’s.

He climbed on their backs and hacked their phones and giggled as he played Britney Spears over a warehouse’s speakers when they were meant to be stealthily invading. Jeremy silently wondered what had made him change so quickly but chalked it up to being comfortable again.

 

Geoff Ramsey contacted the Battle Buddies about a year and a half into their partnership, approximately a year after they’d picked up Gavin and let him stay in the house (that he was technically the owner of).

Jeremy _freaked_.

“Ryan, holy shit, we can’t say no, oh my god, Ryan we have to go you don’t understand-”

“Jeremy, Jeremy- listen. _Listen_.”

“Ok, I’m still freaking out, but I’m also listening.”

“This is a two person invitation.”

“Yeah?”

“There are, technically, three of us.”

Jeremy turned and looked at Gavin, who raised his eyebrows at him from behind his mug of questionable caffeinated beverage. “Shit.”

“Who’s it from?” Gavin asked once he’d finished his chug, and Jeremy smiled.

“Get this- Geoff _motherfucking_ Ramsey.”

Gavin, for his part, seemed wholly unimpressed.

“Did you know his last name used to be Fink?”

Jeremy and Ryan looked at him in through confusion. “Did you hear me?” Jeremy finally asked. “Geoff _Ramsey_ , dude, king of Los Santos, head of the Fakes?”

“Yeah,” Gavin said, getting up and starting to rummage through the fridge. “I heard you. Trust me, he’s not that big of a deal. He’s a giant nerd that plays too much Gems of War and thought it’d be funny to run his own crew. He lucked the fuck out is all. Owes me like, 500 quid from when he was just starting after he left the Cockbites.”

“Do you _know_ him?” Ryan asked after a shell shocked silence, and Gavin laughed.

“Yeah, I lived with him for like, 5 years! If you want in that crew, I can get you in, no problem.”

“Gavin, I could fucking _kiss_ you, you beautiful british bastard!” Jeremy yelled.

“It’s about time you did,” Gavin said, rolling his eyes, and didn’t notice how the other two fell silent until he turned around again. “What? Don’t tell me you don’t bloody want to because literally two weeks after I moved in, you told me you had a big gay crush on me.”

“I did what.”

Gavin spit out the drink he was taking. “You don’t- you came to my room, jumped on my bed, and kissed my cheek, saying you wanted to kiss me for real so badly but you couldn’t! And when I asked you why you just _left!_ ”

“No I didn’t!”

“Yes you did!”

“Like hell I did!”

“You did, I swear!”

“Boys,” Ryan stepped in, clearly frustrated. “Gavin, are you _sure?_ ”

“Yes, I’m sure! I very heavily avoided you for like a week because I was so off my game but then I realized that I honestly wouldn’t have minded, and when I went to approach you about it you acted like nothing had happened at all!” Gavin was wide eyed and starting to get pissed while Jeremy continued to rack his brain for something like that ever happening.

All he could remember was going into Ryan’s room one night, complaining about how badly he wanted to kiss Gavin, to love Gavin, to be with-

Son of a-

“Gavin,” Jeremy said quietly, burying his face in his hands. “Oh, christ, I was so fucking _drunk_ , no wonder I didn’t remember- shit, shit. Fuck me.”

Ryan started laughing, and soon Gavin did too, and then Jeremy laughed into his palms. And then Gavin moved his hands away and tilted his face up and kissed him. And then Ryan wrapped his arms around Gavin’s back, and Jeremy wrapped his arms around Gavin’s front, and then everything felt right for the first time in a long while.

(Until they tried to walk to the bed in that position, and Ryan ended up on the floor, and Gavin ended up faceplanting on the couch, and Jeremy laughed so hard he actually ended up pissing his pants, which ruined the mood a little bit. A lot bit. But Jeremy was deemed as having to sleep naked, which made things okay again.)

* * *

 

This is how it _really_ gets going.

Geoff Ramsey has hired three literal demons of chaos.

Vagabond and Rimmy Tim, he expected, but Phantom is a fucking devil and he _knows_ it, too, so why in God’s forsaken name did he hire this motherfucker?

_Because it’s Gavin_ , some tiny voice in the back of his head says. _And Gavin’s Gavin._

The three new hires are lounging together in one chair- Rimmy on Vagabond, Gavin on Rimmy, snickering and plotting and being terrifying. Honestly scary.

Geoff has a good thing going here, and these three only add to it, but god, they’re just.

Geoff shudders, and watches them.

Gavin waves as Geoff catches his eye and yelps a giggle when Rimmy pokes him in the side and tells him to move his bony ass.

Geoff contemplates giving up sobriety early, because he feels like that’s how this is gonna end.

**Author's Note:**

> my [tumblr](http://transvav.tumblr.com)  
> check me out.come yell about my endless fucking au supply. give me More AUs. i dont know do what you like  
> leave me a comment tho that's always great


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